56 What’s the Motto

Lily

Lily half dozed, running her fingers through Bel’s hair. He lay on top of her like a living weighted blanket, the bulk of his body resting between her legs and his cheek pressed to her abdomen, wings flopped carelessly over the bed. Peace washed over them, seeping into her bones.

They’d come together again, the second time slower, and sweeter, reacquainting themselves with each other’s bodies and focused more on the enjoyment of each other than on reaching a climax, but grateful for the gentle climax anyway.

They’d gone to the shower to rinse off and wound up just holding each other under the hot water before drying off and cuddling together on the bed, where they’d been for several hours, judging by the changing sunlight.

Bel was right, Lily thought, tracing her fingers over the newly regrown tip of his ear.

Now we’re home.

Something—two somethings—dropped heavily onto the bed, jolting them both upright at the same time. Bel snarled, going rigid just he twisted toward the threat. Lily leaned over to peer past his loose hair.

A tray loaded with fruit, cheese, and crusty bread perched on top of the twisted blankets, and next to it lay Bel’s “casual” sword.

Bel’s eyes were wide when they met hers.

She shrugged, not sure what else to do. “Thanks, Carlton.”

A pitcher of icy water, fogged with condensation, and two glasses appeared on the side table with a thump. Carlton gave a happy little rumble from what sounded like the living room.

“Glad to see you too, buddy. We really appreciate it.” Bel reached for the tray warily, glancing up at the ceiling.

Lily pulled the sheets over her lap, eyebrows furrowed. The tray looked delicious, but something about the house’s semi-sentient activity in their bedroom felt…awkward. Like they’d had a pet watching.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Lily tried to ask neutrally, eyes darting to Bel, who put an undue amount of focus into smearing compound butter on a slice of bread. Lily searched the ceiling, as if Carlton would write its confession there.

What sounded like the whole house rumbled and groaned, but inside their bedroom, not even a board creaked.

“Ah,” Bel said, tension seeping out of his shoulders. “Well, thanks for the room service, Carl.” He handed her the buttered slice, and she appreciated the scents of fresh bread, herbs, and butter before tearing into it.

The house gave a happy little shimmy before silence fell again and Lily sensed its awareness fading away, like a waiter leaving a table.

“Why the sword?” Bel murmured, slathering butter on another slice of bread.

“I think Carlton is very excited that you’re back,” Lily said, holding out her slice of bread like a wine glass. “Cheers, big guy.”

He tapped his bread against hers. “Cheers, princess.”

Just as Lily took a bite, she realized the absolutely golden opportunity that she’d let slip by. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I should’ve said ‘Let’s make a toast,’” Lily said in disgust. “How could I miss that?”

Bel shook his head solemnly. “Rye would you turn that opportunity down? You’re baking my heart.”

Lily grinned. Challenge accepted. “It was pretty crumby of me, I know. It was a no-grainer, and I still missed it.”

Bel snorted, fighting for his composure. “Well, at yeast we still have each other.”

“I loaf you.” Lily giggled. “Even when you’re being kneady.”

“I loaf you too. You’re my butter half,” Bel managed to say with a mostly straight face.

The butter and the loaf of bread disappeared from the tray, and they collapsed into laughter.

* * *

They sat in comfortable silence, propped up against the headboard side by side, the half-empty tray resting on their extended legs. Bel had gone quiet while they’d eaten, and she’d noticed him glancing at the sword, a furrow between his brows. Despite the moment of levity, something in the air had shifted. It didn’t feel bad , just heavy. Lily didn’t want to push, giving him the time and space to sort through his own mind, and her patience was eventually rewarded.

“The funeral pyres are in three days,” Bel said, gaze distant.

Lily chewed a grape slowly, chest aching, studying his profile, his hands lying limp on the sheet. She knew better than to ask him if he was going, or if he wanted to go. His sense of responsibility would allow nothing else.

She swallowed, reaching for his hand. “What do you need to do, and how can we help?”

He kissed her knuckles and tipped his head back, eyes closing with a sigh, lines of weariness bracketing his eyes and mouth. She reminded herself that he might be physically healed, but his heart and mind were an entirely different matter. The scars on his skin were nothing compared to the ones that scored his soul.

“The healers are the ones who perform the body of the rite. Since it’s a military burning, the commanding officer and general of the deceased have a part to play. But since there are…” He trailed off, jaw flexing.

“Since there are so many,” Lily said softly for him.

He squeezed her hand. “All the generals and remaining officers will be doing it together.” He paused, something brewing behind his eyes, but it was gone before she could name it.

“Afterwards, I usually pay a visit to the family or families of any of the fallen. But in times like these, we’ll hold receiving lines for those who wish to speak with us.” Bel opened his eyes, gazing at her. “As for how you can help? Be there. I’ll try but…I’m sorry if you have to be patient with me.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Bel. We’re there for each other. If you need to cry, I’m here. If you need to vent, I’m here. If you need space, you’ll get that too. If you want to talk to someone professionally, there are plenty of therapists on Levels One and Two who specialize in dealing with survivor’s guilt and military trauma, and I will support you in that every step of the way. If you need me to show up to your office wearing nothing but peanut butter to keep your head from feeling so dark and inescapable, I will fucking do it.” She put every ounce of her love for him into her next words. “Nothing about us feels temporary, and things that aren’t temporary require effort. I can’t do this for you, Bel, but I will do it with you, and I am honored to do so.”

With every word out of her mouth, Bel’s eyes brightened, then the little crinkles at the corners deepened, and finally, towards the end of her speech, he’d smiled. Softly, but he’d smiled, the worst of the nightmares fading from his eyes.

And that was all she cared about.

He pressed a kiss into her hair, murmuring a thank-you and resting his cheek on the top of her head, his powerful body relaxing.

Lily smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, cradling his hand in both of hers. The Afterlife was brighter with him beside her. The colors and scents and sounds even more potent, her own monsters seeming like simply challenges instead of insurmountable obstacles.

“Am I limited to just peanut butter?” he asked quietly.

Lily snorted and turned her face into his shoulder to bite him. He squirmed and chuckled, nuzzling her hair.

“I’m open to suggestions,” she said, settling against him.

“Honey?”

Her mind presented her with the intriguing image of Bel lapping drips of golden honey from her breasts, fangs grazing over her skin in the way she adored. She shivered.

“I could do honey. It’s a bit drippier than peanut butter, though, so Lev will have a stroke when he follows the trail of drips and catches us being ‘unprofessional.’”

“Mm, but either way, we’ll be making a mess of my office, and I like honey more than peanut butter.”

“Honey it is.” Lily grinned, then abruptly remembered her gift and grabbed his thigh. “Oh! Speaking of your office, I have something for you.”

She sat up and reached for her side table where she kept a notebook and pen to write down late-night ideas or thoughts. She had no idea where her phone was—probably still at the Hellp Desk—but she’d memorized the phrase just in case.

“Lube?” Bel asked smugly.

“You want to play with my ass in your office, that’s more than fine, but my house, my lube. Your office, your lube,” Lily said, seizing the notebook.

“Fair.”

“So,” Lily explained, clicking the pen, “when I was hanging out with some of the partners of your legions for the first time, I saw how powerful it was to be around people who just understood . Though you were the first one who taught me that and helped me realize it in the context of our relationship, I realized it on a bigger scale with them. Then I thought about you and how, from a tactical standpoint, understanding is one of the best weapons you can have. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your enemy’s. That’s when it hit me that that could be a great motto for you, even if it was just a sticky note on the door for a week. ‘Strength through understanding.’ I even got one of the linguists in the Universal Library to translate it into Latin for me. ” She slid the notebook over for him to see what she’d written.

VIRES PER INTELLECTU

He took the notebook from her and studied it, tracing each letter with the tip of a claw, but otherwise utterly still.

Suddenly nervous, Lily bit her tongue to keep from babbling about how he didn’t have to pretend to like it, and he could tell her she was fifty kinds of sentimental idiot if he wanted to.

The silence stretched, the only sound their breathing. Bel’s breathing mostly. Lily was fairly certain she hadn’t breathed since she handed him the notebook. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“You don’t have to like it,” Lily assured him, reaching for the notebook. He held it out of her reach, blinking at her with suspiciously shiny eyes.

Oh.

“I love it,” he rasped, setting the notebook carefully to the side. He then moved the empty food tray, cupping the back of her head and kissing her deeply. Every thought eddied out of her head, the twisting worry in her chest replaced with warm, happy buzzing.

“I love it,” Bel repeated, kissing down her neck. He threw the sheet off of them and backed down the bed, pulling her with him until she lay flat, trailing kisses between her breasts and over her stomach, the silver in his eyes a thin halo around his blown-out pupils.

Well then.

Arousal pulsed between her thighs, and she let them fall wide to accommodate his broad body. The calluses on his hands rasped over her hips as he eased downward, nipping at the skin of her lower belly.

“Are you sore?” he rumbled, lifting his head, the furrow back between his thick eyebrows. Lily smoothed it away with her thumb.

“A little,” she admitted, then smirked and added, “You did solid work.”

His responding grin was unrepentant. “Ah, well, let’s see if I can kiss it better.”

Bel lowered his head, warm breath fanning over her increasingly sensitive skin—

The front door slammed open with enough force to rattle windows.

“Hi, Carl! I missed you!” Sharkie’s excited cry turned them both into statues, staring at each other in mute horror for the briefest of moments before launching themselves off the bed.

“Pants, pants, pants…” Bel muttered in a panic, throwing loose blankets back on the bed in search of his long-lost pants.

Lily half fell off the bed, wincing at the thump, scrambling into the closet for something— anything . Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bel yank up his pants and lean his shoulder against the door while he fumbled to thread his tail into the hole at the back.

She almost didn’t bother with underwear, but the thwarted moment of intimacy and the resulting dampness had her rethinking that idea. She had no idea if the underwear was on inside out or not, but she hopped and cursed her way into a pair of leggings and reached for a shirt at random, yanking it off the hanger so hard the hanger bounced to the floor.

The door rattled, and her stomach dropped to her toes, but Bel leaned against it with wide eyes and a guilty expression.

“What’s wrong with your door?” Sharkie asked, and the doorknob jiggled.

Bel winced, gesturing for Lily to hurry up. “It seems like Carlton is playing a little joke,” he lied.

“Carl!” Sharkie laughed. “I know you missed Bel, but come on!”

Lily yanked the shirt on. Finding and securing a bra would take too much time, and Sharkie had seen her wander around braless plenty of times before. Bel pointed at the bed, still bracing himself against the door, mouthing, What do we do?

Oh shit, the bed . They’d destroyed it. The blankets were mostly on the floor, except the ones Bel had thrown back on in his search for pants, and the fitted bottom sheet was completely pulled off one corner. Pillows sat at haphazard angles, and there were very distinctive claw marks on the top sheet.

“Fuck,” Lily breathed. Um… “Carlton!” she whisper-yelled up at the ceiling. “Can you please make the bed? Please please please, thank you so much for the privacy and the food and I’m sorry we’re blaming you for not opening the door right now, but I need just this one thing from you, buddy, please …”

With a soft whump the bed was instantly remade, the pillows plumped up and in their proper place.

Lily whirled and kissed the door frame of the closet. “Thank you!”

“Good house!” Bel whispered, shifting his weight to move away from the door.

A wad of fabric smacked him in the shoulder as Carlton chucked his shirt at him, and he snagged it before it hit the ground. Lily took over bracing the door with her hands, allowing Bel to pull the sleeveless shirt over his head. She didn’t bother giving him time to close the wing flaps but made a show of jiggling the handle before opening the door.

Sharkie lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Bel’s middle with an excited laugh. “Papa said you were allowed out of bed! Why didn’t you text me?”

There was more than a little accusation in her tone.

“We’re sorry, Sharkie. We should have texted you, but something kind of distracting came up and we didn’t handle it well,” Bel said, hugging her back and shooting a guilty look at Lily.

Shame ate at her. She’d completely forgotten to give Sharkie an update. Sharkie shouldn’t have heard it from Luci, but from them, especially knowing how excited Sharkie was to see Bel on his feet. Lily was usually so on top of keeping an open dialogue with her that the failure to do so was all the more jarring.

As much as she felt like a bad parent in that moment, she also knew they’d just made an honest mistake. All she could do was apologize and do better.

“We’re really sorry, bug. I know that doesn’t change it, but we won’t do it again.”

Sharkie shifted to keep one arm wrapped around Bel while she blinked up at Lily. “Did you guys get it figured out? Was it one of those monsters again?”

“No,” they both hurried to assure her.

“No, there won’t be any more monsters like that,” Lily said. “It wasn’t that serious, but we, uh, had to have a serious conversation about our relationship.”

“Very serious conversation,” Bel said seriously, though Lily saw his eyes crinkle.

Sharkie whipped back towards Lily, horror all over her round face. “Are you reincarnating?”

“No!” Lily said vehemently, then again, more gently, “No. I’m not going anywhere, bug.”

Sharkie visibly relaxed. “You talked it all out, though? Whatever it was?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, cool. So, what fancy dinner are we having to celebrate Bel being home?”

Lily let herself be swept up in the joyful whirlwind of being with her family for the rest of the day, but something tickled at the back of her mind, like a grain of sand in a shoe.

Bedtime involved Lily and Bel sitting in the hallway outside of Sharkie’s room while she snuggled in bed, listening to Lily read a chapter from a fantasy series that Sharkie was obsessed with. Lily and Bel had gone to their newly made bed hand in hand, cuddling naked together just because they could.

Bel had dropped off to sleep before she did. Lily lay in his arms, listening to his breathing, to the rustling of leaves outside their window, and asked herself the question again.

Reincarnation. Did she still even want it?

The logistics side of her decision was easy. The Afterlife had no money, taxes, disease, rape, assault, violent crime. She not only had her own home, she had her own Paradise, with a semi-sentient house that she grew fonder of by the day, as well as a job she enjoyed. Logistically, the Afterlife won by a mile.

But something in the fiber of her being craved life .

The dreams she’d held for so long were still dreams, but perhaps they no longer looked the way she’d expected them to. She’d always wanted a family of her own. Now she had one. She’d wanted a loving partner and a relationship built on mutual trust, respect, communication, and affection. She had that too. Children? She had one—one incredibly bright, strong child whose courage and curiosity never stopped awing her.

There was also still a bolt of pain when she thought of being pregnant, having Bel’s child, getting to watch them grow up with Sharkie. Ever since the picnic at Lilith’s house, Sharkie had talked about siblings, and asked endless questions about what it was like to be the oldest child. Lily had caught her beaming up at the picture in the entryway, head cocked and eyes brimming with curiosity. It’d hurt every time.

But…that was new, wasn’t it? It wasn’t some faceless person she was having children with; it was Bel. It wasn’t just torturing herself, wondering what her and Bel’s family might grow into, if the impossible was possible; it was being unable to imagine having children with anyone else. There were so many precious milestones that she’d missed sharing with Sharkie, moments that she’d dreamed of: First time rolling over. First steps. First tooth. First word. But when she indulged in that dream, it was with Bel.

She slid a hand up to her chest, resting over where her heart should beat. Such a silly thing, to miss a heartbeat. She hadn’t realized how intrinsically important it was until it was gone. She still waited for her heart to skip a beat when Bel gave her a heated look, to pound when a soul yelled at her, to steady when Sharkie hugged her. Yet, her silent heart was more filled with love and belonging and joy now than her beating one had ever been.

Being alive was one thing, but she’d fought to live , to savor every heartbeat and take in every experience. Life had been difficult and flawed and stressful and beautiful and surprising and glorious. But she’d died. Over, and over, and over again she’d died young. In painful, sad, tragic ways. But she’d had hope, had dreams.

Almost all her dreams had come true here. In that moment, in Bel’s arms, in her Paradise, with her adopted child sleeping in the next room while her beloved cat watched over her, Lily had everything that mattered.

The old soul who had come to the Hellp Desk flashed into her mind, the one who’d lived hundreds of lives and finally been ready to rest. Lily thought of her often, wondering if, someday, she would ever be that wise and kind, wondering what kinds of things a soul could see in hundreds of lifetimes, what things she knew.

“I’d considered giving it all up to stay and gain just as much, but in the end, living a mortal life felt right to me.”

To stay and gain just as much.

Lily hadn’t fully understood her then. She did now.

Because the Afterlife felt right to her.

Bel shifted, pulling her back closer to his chest. “You’re thinking too hard,” he slurred deeply, obviously still mostly asleep.

“How do you know?” she asked the room, moonlight through the curtains giving the room just a hint of light.

“You’re stiff. I can feel you thinking. Stop it,” he mumbled, relaxing back into sleep.

Lily smiled and rolled over so that they were face-to-face. She studied the stern droop of his mouth, the way his brows had lowered into a hint of a scowl, the line of his cheek and the new scar, warmth suffusing every inch of her body. So unlike she’d expected him to be, and she loved him with her whole heart.

And wasn’t that just the best metaphor for the Afterlife?

She smiled softly to herself.

To stay.

To stay.